Night Rain

Now, she was truly penniless. Not a single coin remained.

The evening wind began to pick up. At first, it was very light, gently layering upon itself as it rustled the tattered hem of her robe. The ice water poured over her head this morning had not yet dried; the damp cloth clung to her skin, making her wounds throb with pain. As the wind carried the heavy moisture, her body began to grow stiff.

Those Confucian cultivators who spent their days composing poetry always praised the east wind. But now, she felt only the cruelty of the east wind.

“So cold...”

Jiang Ci pursed her dry, cracked lips. It was not a bone-chilling cold, but a slow, agonizing pain, like a thousand cuts from a tiny blade.

She looked back at Beizhou City and the refugee camp, staring for a brief moment. Torches still flickered on the city walls, and a few scattered campfires dotted the refugee camp, resembling the final, gasping breaths of a dying man. Pulling her gaze away, she continued walking deeper into the dark night.

She could not go back. There was no need to seek out more misery.

The dim, golden sunset was swallowed bit by bit by the horizon. The temperature continued to plummet, and the wind grew stronger. If she did not want to freeze to death, she had to find a place to shelter.

Which way should she go? Jiang Ci stopped and thought for a long time, truly having no idea where else she could go. She walked forward slowly, trying to make sense of how she had fallen to such a state in just a few short days.

From the Azure Cloud Sword Heir to an exiled criminal. The distance between the two was as vast as the heavens. Now, she had fallen.

Did it hurt? Of course it did. But what could she do about the pain?

She looked down at Qinghan in her hand—this sword could only serve as a crutch now. The scabbard, once beautifully carved and capable of nourishing the blade, was now caked in mud. She drew the sword; the cracked blade was just like her Dao Heart, shattered and full of fractures.

She raised the sword, holding it up against the faint moonlight.

A face was reflected on the blade. It was covered in dust and grime, with a long, bloody gash stretching from her ear to her shoulder. The dried blood had smeared across her face, staining half of it a dark, brownish red. Her eyes were filled with exhaustion and a blank dread for the future. She stared at that face for a long time—was this really her? When had she become like this?

She remembered a month ago, when she was still chasing down an elder of the Ice Spirit Cult across the ice plains of the Northern Border. Back then, she had been covered in blood, but her eyes had been bright. Now, she was completely alone, and the light in her eyes had gone out.

Should I commit suicide? Jiang Ci thought. That was indeed an option.

She raised the sword and pressed it against her neck. The blade touched her skin, drawing closer bit by bit. The wind slipped past both sides of the blade, producing a faint hum. Closing her eyes, she applied a slight pressure with her fingers.

Just as the razor-sharp edge was about to slice open her throat—

The blade suddenly began to tremble on its own, slipping from Jiang Ci's grasp. It fell to the ground, bouncing twice against the gravel with a crisp, metallic clatter.

Her attempt at suicide had failed. The fleeting courage she had managed to summon to face death mostly dissolved.

She stared blankly at Qinghan lying on the ground. The blade was soiled with dirt, reflecting a dull gleam in the night. She suddenly remembered how many years this sword had been with her—exactly eleven years, since the day she formed her Golden Core at fifteen. Over those eleven years, she had held it to slay Ice Spirits, execute traitors, and block heavenly tribulation lightning. It had saved her life more than once.

Now, it had saved her once again.

She decided to stop walking altogether. Nearby stood a bare, gnarled tree with twisted branches, resembling an old man bent by the wind. She sat down against the trunk, pulling Qinghan into her arms. The scabbard felt ice-cold against her chest.

Holding her sword, she listened to the occasional footsteps in the distance. People passed by in small groups, heads lowered and shoulders hunched, walking toward Beizhou City. No one looked at her, and no one stopped to ask why she was sitting alone by the roadside.

She suddenly wondered: Why did I start cultivating in the first place?

Jiang Ci tried to piece together the fragmented memories in her mind. Trying to trace them backward was too exhausting; it felt as though she had done nothing but cultivate and kill, over and over. She could only try to sort them chronologically from the beginning.

She searched for those earliest fragments of memory—flickering firelight, agonized wails, the voices of a man and a woman, and the scent of sea brine mixed with the metallic tang of blood in the darkness. A pair of large hands had scooped her up from somewhere, pulling her into a warm embrace. Those hands had been very warm, yet she had not stopped shivering. Then came a long stretch of darkness, followed by light, and finally, her master's face.

According to her master, he had discovered a village slaughtered by Sea Spirits along the northeastern coast. He found her hidden inside a wooden box underground and brought her back to the Central Continent.

Jiang Ci had no choice but to believe him. Although she did not understand why Sea Spirits would appear in the Northern Border instead of Ice Spirits—perhaps it wasn't the Northern Border, perhaps she remembered incorrectly, or perhaps her master hadn't told her the whole truth. But those fleeting, hazy fragments were her own memories; they could not be fabricated.

She seemed to know where she should go now.

Home. Back to the home she had when she was still a mortal. Even if she might not find it, at least it gave her a purpose. As for the direction, she would head east, following the path of the rising sun.

Fallen leaves return to their roots. For someone like her, who should have died more than twenty years ago, it was time for her soul to return home.

Jiang Ci sheathed Qinghan and pushed herself up against the tree trunk. Her knees were stiff and painful, and her legs trembled, but she gritted her teeth and stood firm.

The sky had turned pitch-black. Even the moon and stars seemed unwilling to grace this fallen region of the Northern Border, hiding behind a thick layer of dark clouds, refusing to shed even a single ray of light. The night was so dense that she could not see her own hand in front of her face.

Any ordinary person would either light a lamp to keep walking or stop to rest for the night.

But Jiang Ci was clearly not an ordinary person. She was a cultivator. Unable to see the path, she intended to cast a basic fire spell. She had already formed the hand seal—pressing her index and middle fingers together to channel spiritual energy from her dantian to her fingertips—

But the moment she tried to mobilize the spiritual energy within her dantian, she found it completely empty. There was nothing there. She attempted to draw upon her spiritual power, but her meridians only flared with a dry, searing pain—like a rusted pipe being forced open, scraping out nothing but a hollow echo.

As for spiritual energy, there was not a single trace.

Jiang Ci froze in place. Her hand remained frozen in midair, still holding the hand seal.

No spiritual energy. No cultivation. She was a useless person, a complete and utter cripple.

It felt as if her chest were being squeezed by an invisible weight, making it hard to breathe. Lowering her hand, she gripped Qinghan tightly, gritted her teeth, and forced herself forward.

So what if it was dark? She refused to believe that she could not even walk without spiritual energy.

One step. Two steps. Five steps.

Her foot caught on a loose stone. Her ankle twisted, and she pitched forward. Before she could react, her knees hit the ground first, followed by her palms, and then her elbows. The sharp gravel dug into her flesh, making her gasp in pain.

It was nothing major. She had only scraped her elbows and knees.

Yet Jiang Ci felt an overwhelming, agonizing pain—more painful than the whip, more painful than the heavenly thunder, and even more painful than having her heart gouged out.

It was not because the wounds were severe. It was because she could not even walk steadily anymore.

She lay flat on the ground, motionless for a long time. The wind blew from behind, tangling her hair across her face. She listened to her own breathing—heavy, ragged, and desperate, like that of a wounded beast.

Qinghan had slipped from her grasp. Panicking, she fumbled blindly around the ground. The sharp stones sliced her fingertips, but she paid them no mind. Crawling on her stomach, she searched inch by inch until she finally touched the long, slender object.

She pulled it into her arms, clutching it tightly.

She did not care that the scabbard was covered in mud. She did not care that the blade was fractured. She simply held it close, as if clinging to her very last lifeline.

The sword in her arms began to blur. It was not the sword that was changing, but her vision growing misty. Tears welled in her eyes, gathering until they could no longer be contained, spilling down her cheeks and dripping onto Qinghan's scabbard, drop by drop.

She did not wipe them away.

She curled up on the ground, her shoulders trembling. It was not from the cold—it was something welling up from the deepest depths of her being, something she could neither suppress nor swallow. She bit her lip until it turned white, but the emotion still squeezed past her throat, escaping as ragged, choked sobs that sounded like wind whistling through torn paper.

She did not want to be like this. She felt she shouldn't be. She hadn't cried when she was whipped, nor when she was struck by heavenly thunder, nor even when her heart was gouged out.

But now, she was crying.

All because she had tripped and fallen. Because she could not even cast a simple fire spell. Because, as she held her sword, she suddenly realized it was the only thing she had left in this world.

A rift opened in the clouds, and moonlight poured down from on-high, casting its glow upon the barren tree, the sword resting on the ground, and the curled-up figure beside it.

The wind continued to blow. Her shoulders continued to tremble.

The moonlight shone down quietly, never fading away.